Guilty of enforcing the law

By Craig Holt

Published: Friday, September 28, 2012 at 02:06 PM.

One fall night about 10:45 p.m. last October, while driving home from adult softball games in Burlington, I stopped at the intersection of Tucker St. and Anthony Road (yes, I stop at stop signs). But an additional reason to come to a halt was a drivers check conducted by the Alamance County Sheriff’s office.

Wearing my umpire’s uniform and cap, I recognized a deputy wielding a flashlight to view car occupants and driver’s licenses.

“What’s going on?” I said to the female deputy, once a renowned softball player and currently a coach who’s known me for years.

“Just checkin’ drivers licenses,” she said. “Been callin’ games?”

“Yep,” I said. “Just finished.”

Now, the deputy knew me, saw my uniform, and yet I still had to produce my driver’s license and show it to her.

I am not now nor never have been of Hispanic descent, can say only “Si,” “No,” and “No hablo Englais,” wasn’t disguised as a Hispanic (some players say I’m disguised as a “blue”), yet I had to show my driver’s I.D. to her.

One fall night about 10:45 p.m. last October, while driving home from adult softball games in Burlington, I stopped at the intersection of Tucker St. and Anthony Road (yes, I stop at stop signs). But an additional reason to come to a halt was a drivers check conducted by the Alamance County Sheriff’s office.

Wearing my umpire’s uniform and cap, I recognized a deputy wielding a flashlight to view car occupants and driver’s licenses.

“What’s going on?” I said to the female deputy, once a renowned softball player and currently a coach who’s known me for years.

“Just checkin’ drivers licenses,” she said. “Been callin’ games?”

“Yep,” I said. “Just finished.”

Now, the deputy knew me, saw my uniform, and yet I still had to produce my driver’s license and show it to her.

I am not now nor never have been of Hispanic descent, can say only “Si,” “No,” and “No hablo Englais,” wasn’t disguised as a Hispanic (some players say I’m disguised as a “blue”), yet I had to show my driver’s I.D. to her.

The deputies checked one line of vehicles, not two. There wasn’t a special line for anyone appearing Hispanic.

Moreover, the three or four stopped drivers, including me, knew why the deputies had set up a check point — to determine if we were wearing seat belts, decide if we were substance impaired, carrying open containers, if the smell of marijuana was obvious — or if our drivers licenses were valid.

My wife and I have encountered previous road checks by ACSO deputies. It’s also happened in Caswell and Guilford counties. The officers are unfailingly polite and wish us well when they tell us to proceed.

But a few drivers earn citations or are arrested, I’m sure, for failure to produce a driver’s license or valid I.D. I’m fairly certain a person without I.D. or a driver’s license must undergo a deeper check as part of the process to determine if they’re a U.S. citizen — or not.

That’s the profiling done by ACSO law-enforcement officers and their brothers and sisters across the state.

But drivers or illegals caught behind the wheel without a legal license or any I.D. often must pay the piper. However, like softball players called out who think they should’ve been judged safe, they’ll squawk — or fans in the stands will yell in support.

That appears to be the major similarity between softball players and DOJ officials, although often teammates of a complaining player will tell him to “Just shut up; you were out.”

The serious (and expensive to local taxpayers) legal threats raised by DOJ officials who allege the Alamance County sheriff directed his field officers to engage in a pattern of discriminatory traffic stops because a number of citations were written to Hispanics is confusing since the figure I heard on a news show was the ACSO was 10-for-10 in issuing citations to illegals who later claimed they were profiled. Explain, please, how an illegal has precedence to complain, once caught without documents, he was apprehended in the first place?

Extending the DOJ/ACLU logic, if an officer stops a car for speeding and finds a kidnap victim bound and gagged in the back seat or a bomb with a message taped to the side that reads: “Revenge on Alamance County courthouse, judges and lawyers,” the officer may only write a speeding citation but must send the driver/kidnapper/mad bomber on his merry way because the officer originally wasn’t looking for a kidnap victim or bomb.

What’s strange is of all agencies the DOJ should know the exclusionary rule to the 4th Amendment gives law enforcement officers the right to cite or arrest someone for illegal activity other than what’s originally being investigated (i.e., a license check turns into an illegal alien bust).

But then the current U.S. Department of Justice is headed by Obama appointee Eric Holder, who has his own history of questionable decisions (“Fast and Furious” gun-running fiasco, contempt of Congress charge, etc.).

I think Time-News editor Madison Taylor was correct in his Sept. 23 column — Holder’s DOJ may have profiled Terry Johnson for being white, male and Southern while enforcing the laws of the land.